By Mark Walters
Editors Note: AmmoLand News welcomes Mark Walters to our growing list of the best and brightest gun rights commentators, who are watching out for your RKBA.
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Republican? Yeah, Sure.
What Republican anywhere in any position, anyplace, would allow themselves to be photographed with Moms Demand Action and be proud of it?
Can you think of anyone whose career might not be permanently jeopardized as a result? Mind you, I’m not talking about someone who got “punked” by some clown taking a fake photo pretending to be someone else. I’m talking about a supposed Republican who willingly allowed themselves to become a champion of the hated Bloomberg anti-gun, crowd.
I’m serious. What Republican, in a Republican district or Republican controlled state, would do such a thing?
Florida State Senator, Anitere Flores, the second most powerful Republican senator in the state, that’s who. But why? How?
We need to start with the fact that there are (were) a number of pro-gun bills proposed in Florida this year protecting and advancing a broad range of our right to bear arms in that state. Unfortunately, it appears for the second year in a row, all but one pro-rights bill was killed before even getting to committee by a “Republican,” Senator Aintere Flores from, you guessed it, Miami. Here’s a piece from from WFTV Channel 9:
Not even a full week into the legislative session, Florida lawmakers appear to have killed nearly all new bills submitted to expand gun rights in the state.
Initially, bills that were aimed at allowing guns to be carried on school campuses and airports appeared to have widespread support in the Florida House.
“It’s a Second Amendment right and we’re very protective of that right, Rep. Jason Brodeur said. But in the Florida Senate, the bills didn’t even make it out of committee, thanks to Sen. Anitere Flores.
“I do not support having guns on campus,” she said. “I do not support having guns in airports. I do not support having guns in school zones.”
The move marks the second time in two years that gun bills died in the opening days of the legislative session.
The National Rifle Association was quick to react to the bills being blocked, and vowed in a statement that “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over.”
The NRA, through legendary stalwart Marion Hammer, had this to say:
SB-646 Open Carry and SB-616 Courthouse Carry by Sen. Greg Steube were both scheduled to be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, March 7, 2017, between 4:00-6:00pm.
However, when SB-616, the first of the two bills came up, committee member Sen. Anitere Flores conducted questioning of the Chairman and bill sponsor, Greg Steube, and then made her anti-gun statement declaring her intentions regarding pro-gun bills.
That bill subsequently passed 5-4 and the other 3 other progun bills on the committee agenda were temporarily passed over and not brought to a vote.
Some in the media are now suggesting that all pro-gun bills are now dead for the year. We hope the following helps you understand where we are at this point in time.
Below is a video to Sen. Flores’ antigun statement as well as her “victory” photo (above) of her with the Florida leader of Bloomberg’s “Moms Demand Action.”
Here’s the link to what many are calling the Flores “State of the Senate” speech in Judiciary Committee yesterday.
A reporter questioned me about what happen and these are my responses:
“I cannot tell you why Sen. Flores suddenly turned on law-abiding gun owners because I do not know. (Until yesterday she had a 100% rating with NRA and USF)
I cannot tell you if Sen. Flores was acting on her own behalf or on behalf of the Senate President or Senate Leadership because I do not know.
I cannot tell you whether or not she has the power to kill all pro-gun bills and not allow the Senate to vote on them because I do not know. But — as the old saying goes — “it ain’t over ’till it’s over,” and this is only Day 2 of the 2017 Legislative session.
And finally, am I giving up for this session? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I represent law-abiding gun owners statewide and they depend on me to fight for them and I will.”
In the case of de la Portilla, the Bloomberg-funded groups of civil rights deniers and freedom haters, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action (what a silly name, by the way) were quick to applaud his actions as “common sense.” Of course, it didn’t take long for the groups to do the same this year tweeting a picture of one of their spokes moms with Florez championing her unilateral refusal to allow the people of Florida to be heard by their representatives.
Both of these “Republicans” come from a historically Democrat region in southeast Florida. It’s no secret that the area is overrun by snowbirds from the northeast who bring their liberal politics with them to their adopted new home. In Diaz de la Portilla’s case, it cost him the election and his family “dynasty” was leveled. To be honest, Florida saw a ton of redistricting, and I’m not so sure the gun issue did him in down in Coral Gables in and of itself but nonetheless, he’s gone.
No matter, he’s gone, and another phony “Republican” jumps in to give the enemies of freedom a voice and some bragging rights by single-handedly ignoring the will of the people by refusing even to allow several bills to be heard because she doesn’t like them. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to find a money trail that leads back to Bloomberg. As Hammer says, “until yesterday she had a 100% rating from NRA.” Looks like she failed the test and hopefully she gets the same grade my probability and statistics professor gave me when I failed a test.
A big fat “F.”
About Mark Walters
Mark Walters is the host of two nationally syndicated radio broadcasts, Armed American Radio and Armed American Radio’s Daily Defense with Mark Walters. He is the Second Amendment Foundations 2015 Gun Rights Defender of the Year award recipient and co-author of two books, Lessons from Armed America with Kathy Jackson (Whitefeather Press) and Lessons from UnArmed America with Rob Pincus (Whitefeather Press)